My Fellow Americans

The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro once said that when it came to
Washington, he preferred the Republicans in power because with Democrats
it was difficult to know who he was dealing with.

Despite Castro's semi-favourable comments
on US President-elect Barack Obama, who he described before the
election as "no doubt more intelligent, educated and level-headed than
his Republican rival", his past remarks on the unpredictability of
Democratic administrations may still be relevant for Latin American
countries.

South of the Rio Grande, Obama's victory has certainly been welcomed as a
change from eight years of George W Bush's diplomatic and economic
bullying. In Colombia, the number of human rights abuses increased
during the Bush years. A brief military coup against Venezuela's
democratically elected president Hugo Chávez in 2002 was also publicly
supported by the Bush administration. In 2004, the neoconservatives in
Washington were again up to more tricks, occupying Haiti militarily
after Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in questionable circumstances.

According to most polls, throughout Latin America Bush will be
remembered as one of the most loathed US presidents in history, with the
invasion of Iraq touching a particularly raw nerve.

In contrast, during his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly
portrayed himself as a man of consensus who would seek to build better
diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. Liberal commentators —
whether in the US, Europe or the Hispanic world — could not praise Obama
enough.

A more critical look at the policies on Latin America likely to be
adopted by an Obama administration suggests that the current optimism is
unwarranted. Yes, relations will hopefully improve, but a sharp break
with the past seems unlikely — especially in view of the number of
ex-Clinton officials Obama has thus far signed on board.

Latin American leaders have already clearly articulated their priorities
to the President-elect. Following Obama's election to the White House,
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva stated "I hope the blockade of Cuba ends, because it no longer has any justification in the history of humanity."

An hour later in La Paz, Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo
Morales, who earlier this year expelled the U.S. ambassador for his
alleged support for local opposition groups made his own statement:
"My greatest wish is that Mr Obama can end the Cuba embargo, take
troops out of some countries, and also that surely relations between
Bolivia and the United States will improve."

Hugo Chávez and Cuban president Raúl Castro have both indicated they
will be willing to engage in dialogue with a new Democratic
administration in Washington.

Unfortunately, although Obama has promised he will close down Guantánamo
Bay as a detention camp, and is even — under certain circumstances —
willing to open a dialogue with Havana and Caracas, there is little
evidence to suggest he will lift the embargo on Cuba. The embargo has
now endured for close to half a century; in the aftermath of the
island's recent hurricanes, the consequences were particularly
devastating.

In a speech
delivered on 23 May 2008 to the Cuban American National Foundation in
Miami, Obama said that while he would not lift the embargo on Cuba he
would as President "immediately allow unlimited family travel and
remittances to the island."

Furthermore, the senator from Illinois described Hugo Chávez as a
demagogue and stated that he would "fully support Colombia's fight
against" the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) while working
with the government "to end the reign of terror from right wing
paramilitaries". There will, however, be some problems pursuing the
latter given the vast body of evidence linking the incumbent president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez to paramilitaries and the drug cartels.

According to Stuart Grudgings, reporting for Reuters
on 5 November, Obama "also voiced support for US ally Colombia when it
launched a military raid against guerrilla forces camped inside
neighbouring Ecuador in March even though it was condemned by many Latin
American governments".

Following the Colombia-Ecuador and Venezuela crises, right-wing
opposition groups attempted to violently disrupt — if not overthrow —
the leftist Morales Government in Bolivia
in September. South American countries took an unprecedented move and
met under the banner of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR),
sidestepping the Organisation of American States (OAS) — traditionally
the forum to resolve such disputes and historically heavily influenced
by the US.

With Venezuela often at the helm, many Latin American countries are
pushing for their continued economic and political integration. Like its
Republican predecessor, the new Obama administration will not be able
to ignore this challenge to Washington's traditional role in the region.
Organisations like UNASUR and the Bank of the South (Banco del Sur), a joint South American venture aimed at withstanding the influences of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are a reality.

Several countries in the region are also calling for the establishment
of a unified currency to challenge the US greenback. Although falling
oil prices have put a dent into Chávez's funding plans for these
projects, many social movements and governments are still committed to
seeing the region unified in a similar manner to the European Union,
albeit with a much more radical socio-political agenda.

While not explicitly acknowledging these trends, Obama made it clear in
his Miami speech that he would only be talking to some Latin American
leaders, hardly a show of support for regional unity. Through an
initiative called the Energy Partnership for the Americas, Obama stated
that he intended to "establish a program for the Department of Energy"
with US "laboratories to share technology with countries across the
region".

He added: "We'll assess the opportunities and risks of nuclear power in
the hemisphere by sitting down with Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
This is a unique role that the United States can play. We can offer
more than the tyranny of oil."

The comment on the "tyranny of oil" was, of course, aimed at Venezuela.

Though some of his speech may have been designed to placate his
right-wing Cuban Miami audience, Obama's remarks on a possible US-led
proliferation of nuclear power in the region do not seem responsible. In
November — and most likely in response to the Obama initiative — Chávez
and Russian president Dimitri Medvedev signed a cooperation accord whereby Moscow will aid Caracas in developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes — or so they claim.

Whether an Obama administration will be able to deflate the hopes of
many Latin American countries for regional unification remains to be
seen. In the current parlous financial climate, the actions of the US in
the region may be limited, although organisations like UNASUR and the
Bank of the South have not yet been consolidated to their full
potential.

Reflecting on Obama's victory, Rafael Correa — president of Ecuador and a
strong ally of Venezuela — summarised these issues succinctly. With the
Democrats in power, Correa said
he expected relations between the US and Latin America to improve. His
real dream? That one day "Latin America really doesn't have to worry
about who is the president of the United States because it is sovereign
and autonomous enough to stand on its own two feet."